This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Our obsession these days with small-batch, by-hand and artisanal food has us looking askance at anything edible that comes out of a machine.

But sometimes, it’s impossible to feed cravings with nothing but elbow grease.

Take authentic Mexican tortillas.

There may be Mexicans, most likely in rural areas of the Spanish-speaking country, who grind their own masa, flatten, pat and form just enough for their meals, says Axel Arvizu, co-owner of La Tortilleria, a Mexican grocery and “quick serve” restaurant chain.

But by and large, the country’s city dwellers don’t have the time to press their own daily “bread.”

Just as Parisians do with the baguette, he says, Mexicans in Mexico buy their tortillas hot off the cogs of modern-day reliance.

“Families don’t have the luxury to make it themselves anymore,” he says. “This is how they do it back home.”

By “this,” he’s talking about the shiny apparatus that’s spread, like melted Oaxaca cheese on quesadillas, across the floor of his Etobicoke headquarters. A giant, silver beast of conveyors and white noise, it’s nestled at the back of La Tortilleria’s warehouse/restaurant at 817 Kipling Ave.

First, a smaller, less daunting machine off to one side of this humid space churns out the dough — a pulpy golden clay made from specially sourced, authentic flours, water and “nixtamalized” corn that’s been treated with lime solution to remove the kernel skins to make for a softer dough. Then, the large machine transforms it into smooth curtains of masa. They’re cut into 5.5-inch (14 cm) rounds then baked.

The operation pumps out about 80,000 tortillas a day.

Fresh off the belt, the traditional yellow tortillas smell of steamed corn and summertime cookouts. Nutty and rough, they’ve got just the right graininess to texturize moles and cradle frijoles. They’re subtle enough so they won’t steal the show.

Some of the tortillas are cut, crisped and spiced into crunchy, thick chips, perfect for shovelling guacamole ($3.50). Many are packaged by hand to sell in-house. Others are destined to curl around spiced meat in a multitude of dishes homemade by La Tortilleria staff, including los champechanos, grilled steak and chorizo tacos. All are sold at the counters of the three-store chain Arvizu co-owns with friend and business partner Juan Roman, 31.

Still more travel across the GTA, supplying about 95 per cent of local businesses and restaurants serving Mexican cuisine, Arvizu says. Chances are good, he says, that if you’re eating tortillas — fresh ones, made locally and without preservatives — in this town, this machine has made them.

It’s a fact Arvizu is proud of.

Seven years ago, his fledgling company brought Canada’s first such machine, though a tinier version, to their store in Kensington Market (to great fanfare from the Mexican consulate). Since, it has helped mould a mini tortilla empire, winning awards, even garnering praise and a meeting three years ago with Prince Charles. When the heir to the British throne asked for the tortilla recipe, Arvizu joked he’d oblige but would then have to “kill him.”

“I wasn’t sure if I would have 20 security guards jump on me,” he says, in reflection. These days, Arvizu’s main worry, thankfully, is growing the business.

La Tortilleria is busy expanding its repertoire. Rather than just yellow corn tortillas ($3 for 36), there are several types, including blue corn, all-organic and green cactus flour tortillas ($7.50 for 36 pieces of each).

The stores sells a mess of spices and dried chilies, tamarind, corn husks and almost everything else (except maybe the pinata) required for an authentic fiesta — even soy chorizo.

Since he, too, is a product of this “foodie” era, Arvizu is always on the lookout for ways to make his tortillas ever more artisanal. He wishes he could craft them entirely from Canadian ingredients but, for now, there isn’t a producer of nixtamalized corn in this country.

“Our goal one day is to grow our own corn,” he says. “It’s a way of staying more in touch with our surroundings.”

For now he’s focused on the daily operations and making sure Torontonians know about authentic Mexican cuisine. For instance, Arvizu says, it’s good practice to keep tortillas in the fridge and warm them just before serving for 30 seconds in a hot pan. (Cold, they’ll keep for two weeks.) But it is sacrilege to sully a tortilla with peanut butter, regular butter or even to sprinkle it with shredded cheese.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com